Dr. Filomena

So many things have been going on lately… but hey, what else is new. I haven’t posted to the blog in a while because I either didn’t have the time to (or rather spent it in another way, say playing squash – yippie!) or being unsure of how to convey my thoughts to you guys.

A week ago I finally got to meet Camille, a fascinating young woman from New York City who’d decided to move to Slovenia… for love. I’d “met” her in the blogging community. Hey, you guys are real flesh and blood! More on that later. Anyway, after having met up with her for lunch and seeing she’s as cool in real life as she is on her blog, I offered to take her out for a night on the town. So last Saturday, we started the evening chatting in my home and finding the right dress etc.. you know, girl stuff… then drove off downtown. My car’s glove compartment is filled with CDs and as Camille is studying Slovene now (go C!!! – you should exchange notes with Adriaan and “the girls”) we opted for Alenka Godec.

After a stop at Cutty Sark to say hello to another blogger, Pengovsky who DJd at the place that night, we made a tour of the most popular places, such as Global. More on that later. On our way up we shared the lift ride with four young bouncer types, one of them lovingly holding on to a large cut of red meat in a plastic bag. What gives? The place being empty, we were instructed to go to Opera Bar first. Lo and behold, there she was. The lady from our choice of CD in the car. Alenka Godec.

An old friend of mine turns out to be the new assistant manager of the place that was just celebrating its third anniversary… above is the photo she took of “Camille and the two Alenkas”. Alenka has an amazing voice and came across as a really nice lady as well.

Afterwards, we returned to Global, where we wished we’d brought along our own DJ from Cutty Sark or, alternatively, that C’d been given a go at it (her brother is a DJ, too!) Still, the music was at least ok – at least at times – so we actually got to dance a little bit. I do believe C had a bit of a culture shock with the way people danced. “Dirty dancing” was not all that dirty in comparison to a few of those couples. Thanks for the good company, C, hope to do that again sometime soon.

A day later, I found out about the (probably same one who was nice to us) bouncer at Global beating a young man just a half an hour or so after we’d left the place. He died in hospital on Wednesday. This photo was taken yesterday on site where he lost his life. Such a senseless waste.

On a happier note, yet another blogging friend, buba švabe, came to town from Krško to see us on Friday. The visit turned into a real bloggers’ gettogether with 14 bloggers present, among them all three of SiOL’s new “in-house bloggers” (the top bloggers hosted there per users’ vote who’d been given contracts now), namely Fetalij, Irena and Chef.

Photo by Pi.Roman

It was such a pleasure to meet a bunch of interesting young people in one go, all of whom can think, write and actually have fun in real, offline life. Pi.Roman took a zillion photos before Kandela finally took his toy away, and among his subjects were Mojca, Deus.X.Mashina, Nina, Barbara and last but not least, the infamous Sex. We met up at the Skeleton Bar and then moved on to Cutty Sark. This ‘event’ deserves a separate post someday…

All in all, it’s been quite a week, meeting so many interesting people, among them an incredible number of bloggers. Seeing a vibrant young lady move from one continent to another for love, taking a pic with a local celebrity, partying at a place that effectively became a murder scene a half an hour after we’d left, playing squash, travelling to Slavonski Brod for a day (seeing houses still heavily damaged by the gunfire of a decade ago was slightly surreal), hanging out at an ad hoc bloggers’ meeting where I realized half the people were political science majors, enrolling in the second year of my Political Science MA programme and last but not least, spending a wonderful Sunday in equally wonderful company and enjoying the fact that He Cooked Again.

Stuffed tomatoes for a refreshing dinner snack: fill with the extracted tomato pulp, young cheese, cottage cheese, a bit of olive oil, chopped up fresh basil and salt/pepper to taste. Chill in fridge for half an hour.

Having just had a glass of Los Pagos Cabernet Sauvignon from Chile, all I can say is that I have no idea what the meaning of life is, but what I’m sure of is that we should all do our best to enjoy the ride while it lasts.

My condolences to the family and friends of Goraz Čamernik who died so needlessly at the hands of the club bouncer. May he rest in peace.